A spot in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
A spot in Florida - Let's Cheer the Lowly Possum
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There's a spend Florida that crafted a twelve-foot-significant monument through city to exalt the lowly possum. Now, why would everyone have to do that?
Properly, first off, heroes are really hard to return by Within this devote Florida - the Panhandle money of scotland - Wausau, house of a lot less than five hundred persons in the middle of Washington County about 10 miles south of Chipley.
Why not the possum, an not likely hero to put it mildly? No person else places the possum that has a pedestal. Why not Wausau?
Next, very last 1982, Wausau obtained sick and weary with remaining disregarded Along with the Florida lists of entertaining, fairs and festivals. Each devote Florida requires a Competition. And never one position in Florida carries a Possum Festival. Why not Wausau?
If you have not frequented Washington County, you most likely will think I am earning this up. In case you have attended Washington County, you will realize - and know it is a genuine story.
Wausau, it turned out, had some fairly powerful possum politicians during the early '80s. Here are two or three things they achieved:
They persuaded the Florida Legislature to proclaim the primary Saturday in August as Possum Working day in Florida. That led to the constructing While using the monument alongside Condition Freeway seventy seven in Wausau.
They even got the United States Congress to promote the possum. Congress joined the pleasurable by means of delivering the money for Wausau's Possum Palace so Wausau might have a area to guidance its annual Enjoyable Working day and Possum Festival. Showcasing a queen contest and possum auction, amid other issues, the Competition attracts thousands of people today per year, plus they adore it.
Day trip for loads of educating of Northerners right here. The South's possum is equivalent lowly animal you contact opossum, (Why use seven letters when six can do?) It is a smallish marsupial that lives in trees and demonstrates its ugly physique only at nighttime. This is exactly why, any time you find yourself inside the proper area in Florida, you are able to listen to possum hunters' canine baying and barking. Treed by dogs, the possum 'freezes', so it's not so challenging to hook (or shoot) a person.
An inscription to the monument in the course of Wausau cites more info the possum's part in furnishing 'both fur and foods' all over the centuries. It goes on to say: 'Their presence right here has offered a source of nutritious and flavorful food items in usual periods and has been a significant assist to human survival in periods of distress and significant require.'
Snicker if you like. The men and women of Wausau will laugh with you - though downing baked possum and sweet potatoes.